Pierce broke Mario. *MUST READ*

[A2ZOMG]

Pierce and I were discussing Mario, and he came to the conclusion that Mario's biggest fundamental problem is his lack of forward punish options.

According to Pierce, Mario's technically hardest matchups like MK and Marth involve Mario losing to vastly superior forward zoning tools, since Mario's options to punish forward are extremely limited. Dashgrab, F-air, and DA are relatively weak moves, and F-smash is very situational.

Now obviously Mario's main zoning tool is B-air, so the obvious answer would be to approach backwards, but the problem is it is very difficult to maintain solid backwards mobility.

Or is it?

A long time ago, someone discovered Doop Walking, which not only is a solid way of moving forward, you can stop motion either facing forwards or backwards and do a backwards shield slide that will then let you B-air out of shield more easily and thus break zoning much more reliably.

Does Mario ever stop getting more technical lol?

 

[DtJ XeroXen]

This doesn't break Mario at all... in fact, it's not even that good.

 

[HeroMystic]

I advocated this when it was first discovered. However, the button input is rather intensive and you can't exactly do this while running either.

I dunno, I'd have to see it in action. Either way I wouldn't call this Metagame breaking.

 

[A2ZOMG]

It seems like it could benefit Mario enough that it might influence a few matchups. That's pretty awesome if you ask me.

 

[HeroMystic]

I'd take your word for it, but I seriously need to see this action for me to consider modifying my controls (again) just to do so. If it's match-up changing I'd definitely use it. A pseudo-wavedash is always nice.

Reason why I ask is because I have no one to play against this is a major case of a theory right now. Practical use is key here.

 

[hippiedude92]

eh tech skill is too much work for me lolll

though he is right on the forward superior punishing zoning tools, mario's front is really weak :/

 

[HeroMystic]

Yeah, it is. Not too weak though. N-air and U-air makes up for what F-air doesn't give.

Though, I'd take the SSB64 F-air any day.

 

[Inferno3044]

Won't you do a move if you hold A?

 

[Maniclysane]

Yeah, you would do a move but you wouldn't continue doing a move. If you did an nair and kept holding a, nothing would happen afterwards.

The only problem with doop walking is the set up, and that face that if they're at the opposite side of the stage they can see it coming.

 

[Matador]

It's worth trying, but not game-breaking imo. RARing your bairs essentially gives the same result.

After all, even if we were approaching with bair, we still lose in range and priority to most attacks that this method could potentially remedy.

 

[vato_break]

Be creative haha a2z knows what i mean

 

[Pierce7d]

I hadn't tested it yet, it's mostly just theory craft. However, it has a very sound base (and not to be cocky or anything, but usually I come up with a lot of good stuff in theory craft).

Doop Walking is easily executed by changing an unused shoulder button to attack. From there, simply hold it down immediately after executing any other move (like fireball, for instance). Then, tap your C-stick diagonally up and towards the direction you are walking. Voila, you spin. For each tap, you spin once. I'm unaware of how good Mario's spin is ATM. I haven't had time to test extensively, since I've been sick, school, johns, etc.

Inferno, this is ONE of the reasons my tap jump off tag has my L-trigger set to attack.

 

[A2ZOMG]

I don't know if I'm willing to change my controls yet to do doop walking, since I already have found it useful without changing a shoulder button to Attack. Although I won't deny there is probably a technical advantage to doing so.

But I did actually get to try this out in a match, and it is indeed very useful to slide backwards while shielding. I haven't yet of course mastered very consistent intelligent application of this however.